"Clio" the socialite and Melbourne Punch columnist was a terrible, metropolitan snob (she lived in Toorak). One hundred years ago this week she had a scoff at the yokels of the "backblocks".
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"Country recruiting [for the war] of the energetic kind devolves into personal visits. A certain stamp of selfish ignorance to be found tucked away in backblock districts is heart-breaking to an earnest recruiting officer.
"In one place was a family of two stalwart sons and a by no means decrepit father. The recruiting officer called and asked to see the sons. They were both out, the father told him. Oh, well, the recruiting sergeant would wait.
"He waited on the verandah past luncheon time and past tea-time, and still the farmer – unusually inhospitable – asserted that the sons had not returned: While in the act of speaking, however, supposing the sergeant to be gone, one of the sons stepped out on the porch. The sergeant immediately buttonholed him whereupon the father butted in to the conversation, insisting his sons were needed to work the farm.
" 'Do they do all the work, then?' enquired the; sergeant. 'Yes,' eagerly came the reply. 'Then it is time you did a bit of work yourself, dad,' retorted the man-angler, who succeeded eventually in 'collecting' one of the sons to fill a khaki outfit.
"Ignorance, a great deal of such skulking really is. The vital issues at stake are not known or in the least realised in these sequestered farms."
